What gaps are there in Hergé’s representations of women?
There are many gaps in representations of minority groups in Hergé’s “The Adventures of Tintin” one of them being the representation of women Hergé’s believed “that there was no place for women in the world of Tintin” This belief is shown through his work repeatedly where women are seen to have little to no role in the comics they are either wives, mothers, caretaker or nurse or just crowd fillers. Although, Madame Castafiore and Peggy Alcazar are the only two women in “The Adventures of Tintin” that Hergé’s gives important roles to that really have voice.
Madame Castafiore is the only female character that has an album dedicated just for her which is ‘The Castafiore Emerald’ where she is an independent, self-made and famous women. Even though she posses these admirable qualities she is still objectified in the story and does not contribute much to the story although the story is dedicated to her she’s almost seen unwelcomed in conversations which kind of gives the audience a perception that she is not an important character. Which shows Hergé’s ideaology of women and how he precieves them as not important and their voices and opinions are not welcomed into the world of Tintin which is an awful example to set because of how much popularity the Tintin series has gained globally and how many kids around the world read the series.
Peggy Alcazar is another character from the album “Tintin and The Picaros” where she is seen to be a matriarchal women who constantly bullies her husband her husband is seen to be doing ‘womenly’ jobs which gives the perception that she is a dominating making her by far the only dominating women in any of ‘The Adventures of Tintin’. Hergé portrays Peggy in a very negative light to show that women have no place in the world of Tintin by doing this Hergé is he has contributed to the inequality in the representation of women in books, films and etc.
Refrences;
Mountfort, P. (2020). Tintin and gender part 1 [PowerPoint Slides]. Blackboard. https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/
Mountfort, P. (2020). Tintin, gender and desire. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2020.1729829
Pop Genres 2020 